E-Mail This Article to a Friend Present and accounted for A Liquid gift guide BY RUTH TOBIAS
	Where to get the goods • Brookstone, various locations; www.brookstone.com. • Charles Street Liquors, 143 Charles Street, Boston, (617) 523-5051. • International Wine Accessories, www.iwawine.com. • V. Cirace. & Son, Inc., 173 North Street, Boston, (617) 227-3193; www.vcirace.com. • Wine Bottega, 341 Hanover Street, Boston, (617) 227-6607. — RT

With the holidays on the horizon — accompanied as always by parties and present swaps — our most lavish boozing opportunities abound anew. After all, premium liquor is the gift that keeps on giving — not least to the giver, since etiquette dictates that the host or honoree pop the cork (or twist the cap or what have you) and share the wealth. (The same goes for liquor-related offerings: give a set of snifters, get a sip of brandy.) So we’ve compiled the following shopping guide with the best ulterior motives in mind.

If the beneficiary of your generosity is an aficionado of after-dinner quaffs, you might consider purchasing a bottle of grappa as a vogue alternative to the brandies and single-malt Scotches everyone else ho-hummingly proffers. V. Cirace, in the North End, carries "in the vicinity of 300" different makes, according to manager Steve Rizutko, so you’re sure to find a suitable match. For those with mellower palates, Rizutko recommends the Grappa Moscato Primi Frutti ($24.99/half-bottle; $31.99/bottle). Since "in any grappa, you can expect to find the same qualities as you would in the wine" from whose pomace it’s made, grappas distilled from moscato — a dessert-wine grape — are "relatively soft, so you’re not like, ‘What the hell is this gasoline?’" The same label makes even softer fruit-infused grappas ($19.99/half-bottle; $26.99/bottle), including mirtillo, pesca, fragola, and limone (that is, blueberry, peach, strawberry, and lemon). Similarly soulful are a chamomile grappa from Marolo ($29.99) — it’s no cup of tea, mind you, but it strives to be gentle — and the honey- and licorice-tinged varieties from Jacopo Poli ($59.99), one of the two best-known producers (not counting actual wineries like Gaja and Antinori), the other being Nonino. Expect to surrender at least a few Andrew Jacksons for their goods, which you’ll want to consider if your intended recipient has developed enough of a liking for spirits that "you can start to introduce a sense of what [his or her] tastes are. Fruity white-wine grapes tend to distill out on the softer side; red grapes will be fiery but deep and rich and full," says Rizutko. He points to Antinori’s Tignanello grappa ($41) as a particularly popular example of the latter — not surprisingly, since Tuscans (thanks to Chianti) are still the most widely drunk of the Italian reds. Meanwhile, don’t assume that darker grappas are necessarily red-grape distillates; rather, "amber-colored grappa has been aged in oak," a process that actually "reduces the heat a little bit." At any rate, if, after thorough browsing, you’re still not sure which to choose, the most conscientious approach would be to try a few out yourself, repeating as necessary.

But if, after many painstaking trials, you conclude that grappa, with all its ferocity, is not for you — uh, we mean your friend/relative/co-worker — you might try to go in the opposite direction, literally. A couple of blocks away on Hanover, the Wine Bottega reserves the shelf space above the stairwell for an inspired, often funky selection of dessert and other sweet wines. While the ever-thoughtful tasting notes and signage can go a long way toward shaping your gift-giving vision — for instance, the poster reading BEST WINES FOR CHOCOLATE! might lead you to the stellar decision to present, say, wine and chocolate — we still recommend calling on a staffer who can provide reliable tips, like Jacqueline Smith. Her golden rule: a wine will pair well with a dessert "as long as it’s sweeter than the dessert itself." Of course, when it comes to chocolate, finding such a wine isn’t exactly a piece of cake, so Smith makes a few concrete suggestions. Take an oh-so-elegant white-on-white tack with Lágrima ($18), a white port from producer Adriano Ramos Pinto; given the "good length on it," says Smith, it can hold its own with white chocolate. Or try a 10-year tawny port from Martinez ($22), which pairs with chocolate confections containing nuts, "like fudge." Equally pungent potions include a 2002 Les Clos de Paulilles Banyuls ($23), the famed Languedoc dessert wine, and a 2003 Bruno Verdi Sangue di Giuda ($19), a red sparkling wine from Lombardy that goes down, frankly, like the world’s sexiest soda pop; both keep their cool against cacao. And since all are relative steals, you can splurge on superior sweets from Teuscher, Godiva, or Formaggio Kitchen — no Hershey’s, huh?

But let’s say your giftee is as much gadget geek as gourmet. In that case, just take a trip to Brookstone, where drinkers can get down and digital. Check out the Wine Master ($30); the electronic pocket guide to God’s own grape juice is one of those ludicrous little luxuries you’ve just gotta love. While obviously not comprehensive, its five chapters really do manage to impart a wealth of information. "Wine Basics," for starters, subdivides into "Buying," "Drinking," "Storing," and "Serving"; select the latter, and you’ll learn the proper way to open, decant, and pour a bottle of wine, from regulating its temperature to choosing the appropriate stemware. "Wine Tasting" enumerates perceived qualities of aroma and texture: clicking on the former, you’ll find a list of adjectives commonly used to describe a wine’s bouquet or "nose" — "chemical," "earthy," "nutty," "spicy," and so on. Under their rubrics fall more specific scents; for instance, explore "caramelized," and you’ll discover "caramel," "carob," "chocolate," "molasses," and "soy." A glossary defines terms from "amarone" and "brix" to "terroir" and "viognier." "Food and Wine" makes pairing suggestions, by the food or by the wine. For chili, your wise little electronic sommelier recommends zinfandel, and for olives, sherry. Finally, under "Rated Wines," you’ll find subheadings like "Brand," "Type," "Variety," "Country," "Rating," and "Price." Whichever category you choose, you’ll eventually arrive at reasonably detailed tasting notes, such as "lovely aromas show sweet fruit, cherry candy flavors, and some green tannins in a tight, tart finish." As toys go, it’s really quite educational. Then there’s the Virtual Bartender Digital Bar Guide ($65). This little device provides recipes, complete with serving suggestions, for nearly 800 cocktails categorized in various ways: alphabetically, by type (e.g., frozen), by function (e.g., holiday), and so on. It can also store recipes for up to 25 original concoctions — one of which, you might point out in the gift card, should be named after you.